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Why I Don't Need Toll Booth Operators

As I whizzed up the New Jersey Turnpike the other morning on the way to work, my sympathy for the striking toll booth attendants was tempered by my delight at driving from Exit 14 to Exit 16E in seven minutes. It's a trip that I typically allot a half-hour for. And it often ends up longer due to the gridlock at the ticket booths during rush hour.

As a journalist I covered a story a few years ago on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge where the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority was testing a bar code for automobiles. You simply drive through special lanes, without slowing down, and an electronic eye reads your car's bar code and deducts the toll charge from your prepaid account.

It seems a simple thing in this age of the information superhighway that real highways could be automated. I would be delighted to buy a monthly bar-code account for my car and save the half hour every morning.

By going out on strike the toll booth attendants may have made a point with turnpike management. But they also made a point with commuters: Travel would be faster and easier without them. ROB BELL Secaucus, N.J., July 10, 1995

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A version of this letter appears in print on July 15, 1995, on Page 1001020 of the National edition with the headline: Why I Don't Need Toll Booth Operators. Today's Paper|Subscribe